‘This is it my love. I must go,’ he said, regret edged his tone as he unwound her arms from around his neck.
‘This very minute?’
‘Yes, this very minute,’ he smiled. ‘If I don’t leave now, I won’t be able to.’
Scooping her into his arms, he pressed a hard kiss on her lips then turned without looking back and walked out of the room. The front door to the house clicked shut a few seconds later, seeming loud in the oppressive silence already descending on her.
Scurrying across the room, she watched him drive away before returning to the still warm bed. Only then did she realize she had no idea when she would see him again.
* * * *
She wasn’t sure she was cut out for this kind of life, she thought hours later, as she flopped down onto the sofa. All day spent cleaning the house had kept her mind off the emptiness around her. It had been a long time since she’d felt as desperately alone as she had since he’d left.
That was the part she hated. The part where you began to need the person and felt like something was missing if they weren’t there. The last time she’d had similar feelings was when she had met Simon.
Not that there was any real comparison between the men
.
When she first met him, she’d believed she had a chance at true happiness. Boy, had she been wrong. The charming intern with the boyish grin hadn’t stayed that way for long after they were engaged and living together. His chivalrous nature quickly dissolved into controlling behavior. The subtle shift in attitude had gone unnoticed until it was too late. The first time he had manipulated her into doing something she didn’t want to, it hadn’t seemed important. He was a strong personality, she had reasoned to herself, and she didn’t expect to get her own way all the time. It hadn’t helped that she’d had no male role model to compare Simon’s behavior to. Her own father had run out on the family just after Donna was born.
It soon became evident that she was never going to get her way. Eventually, he hadn’t even needed to tell her if he didn’t like something, so attuned was she to his every expression. A tick in his jaw coupled with a sullen look would be all it took for her to know he wasn’t happy…and if he wasn’t happy, then she wouldn’t be for long. He was never violent, but he did intimidate her if she ever tried to stand her ground. Very soon, nothing she wanted seemed worth the hours of sulking or her frayed nerves.
She looked down at her bare hands wondering who was wearing her engagement ring now. Simon had pawned it a few months before they split up after a huge loss at the tables. He’d slid it from her finger with a promise to replace it with something better. Of course, that had never happened, but she never asked him about it again.
Why hadn’t it bothered her more?
She realized now, that was the moment she had begun to leave him.
That was before she even knew about the woman at the hospital. The text message she’d found on his phone had resulted in a huge argument. He’d denied it of course, saying it must be a wrong number or not intended for him. By the end of it, she’d been apologizing for not trusting him. Not that she did trust him—she just couldn’t be bothered to fight anymore. She’d seen him with the woman a few times at work and there was always a tension between them, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
His behavior had gotten worse after that. Like many men who cheat, his guilt turned to anger…anger that was always directed at her. He seemed to trust her less and questioned her endlessly about whom she had spoken to or why she was wearing such a short skirt to work. His sexual appetite grew too. It was as if he needed reassurance that she still belonged to him.
Occasionally, her tactic of feigning sleep before he lumbered into bed kept him off her. It no longer mattered to him that she was unresponsive. He’d long stopped caring if she enjoyed their sex life or not. It usually always ended the same way—he would climb off her in disgust telling her she was frigid after brutally rutting his way to an orgasm.
The biggest insult of all was that he was the one who left in the end—running away with the female colleague who turned out to be his lover—to live in another state.
still didn’t know to this day how she managed to lose herself so totally. Therapy helped in the early days, but soon even that began to feel like a crutch. She came out of that period of her life vowing never to need anyone or anything that badly again. Her confidence and self-esteem had grown immeasurably since he’d been gone. She’d found herself again.
She’d found Ruben too. If the encounter with him had taught her anything, it was that you never knew who or what was waiting if you dared to look. Not all men were like Simon.
Still, it wasn’t the man in her life that was the issue this time. Was she brave enough to relinquish the total control she had over her life and see where this thing with Ruben would lead?
Chapter 10
Ruben put the phone down after his almost nightly call to
Maybe she was losing interest
.
A couple of times in the past he had lost out on the chance of a relationship due to his lifestyle. No woman seemed to understand that it was simply not up to him whether he spent time with her or not. He’d ended up alone and feeling guilty. It had not taken long for him to realize that a long-term commitment was something he would never have, not while he pursued his musical career anyway. He was determined that would not happen this time.
Not this time
.
It had only been a week since he’d seen her last, but it seemed like forever ago. Upon his return to work, his energy level had been immense. The nights he spent with her had been liberating. He had never wanted anybody that badly or for so long. And she hadn’t disappointed him. He doubted he would ever come that hard for anybody else in his entire life.
Thinking of her was a mistake. Throwing himself back onto the bed, he stared at the ceiling. The draught from the open window felt good on his naked body. Closing his eyes, he willed himself to relax. These moments alone were precious and he usually enjoyed them. That night, as for so many nights recently, his head was full of images and sounds of her.
The warm breeze stirred his blood. Memories of her touching and stroking him with her mouth and hands flashed behind his closed eyelids. He saw her lying under him, taking everything he could give. Remembering how the cool, efficient doctor lost control with him sent a charge down his body, making him rock hard. Following its path with his hand, he grasped himself firmly, resting his head on his free arm. His body jerked as images of her flooded his mind.
Moving his shaft firmly in his hand, he pounded his flesh. Turning his head to bite into his bicep, he grasped the skin between his teeth. Tasting his own scent on his tongue but remembering hers, heat raged through him. A low groan escaped his throat, his stomach muscles bulging as the first waves of his orgasm washed over him. Head thrown back, free hand twisting the sheet from the bed, he bit into his lower lip, imagining it was
Collapsing back onto the bed he gasped for air, chest heaving. The tension slowly seeped from his limbs as his breathing returned to normal. The breeze that had caressed him now chilled his sweat-dampened skin. He lay still for a moment enjoying the lethargy his release had brought him. Dragging a hand through his hair he sat up with a sigh, realizing he needed another shower.
He frowned.
How many times had he jerked off just this week alone?
He could not go on like this—he had to see her.
Bringing his
Byron wasn’t going to like receiving the call Ruben was about to make, but it was his personal life, damn it. And, just this once, it would take priority.
* * * *
On the other side of the country,
Ruben’s call had come a little earlier than usual that day due to the time difference on the East coast. She had tried her best to put on a bright voice, but he had sounded concerned. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she wasn’t happy. She should have been—deliriously so. She was involved in a relationship with a gorgeous man and it wasn’t costing her any loss of self-respect or pride. On the contrary, he was good for her and she loved how she felt about herself when she was with him. The person she had always known was inside her had just begun to surface, drawn out by the safety of an accepting spirit. Ruben seemed to welcome every new facet of her that revealed itself and never had she been so open—sexually and intellectually—to any man before. The problem was, although she liked the ‘new’
She found him staring at her from time to time, looking deeply, as if trying to see into her soul. At first, she hadn’t found it easy to hold his gaze, instinctively protecting her inner most thoughts and feelings from his penetrating stare. Eventually, she learned to distract him, giving him a hot look instead of the emotional connection he was searching for. They both knew what she was doing, but he didn’t push and she didn’t give.
His life was so different from hers. Money made things easy for him. If you wanted to be somewhere, you just went, without a second thought. A few times he had asked her to drop everything and join him. Any initial excitement his request had elicited had been quickly squashed by resentment.
How dare he think her life was so unimportant?
She was a doctor for God’s sake. People needed her. His arrogance could be a real turn off sometimes. She poured another drink and turned on the TV. The romantic movie she tried to distract herself with began to bug her. Life just wasn’t like that.
Running a finger around the wine stain, she began to realize this was a different side to the same issue she’d had over Simon. Ruben was ten times the man he had been—there was no comparison. She was the problem and the way she lost herself in any relationship, it seemed. Rather than making her ‘whole’, her affair with Ruben was making her feel like part of her was missing whenever he was gone, which was almost all the time. It was becoming harder and harder to just live in the moment. His absences were beginning to hurt, and without any mention of feelings or emotion from him, why the hell was she putting herself through it?
There was just no way to spend more time with him, not without risking her practice and her independence. She simply couldn’t do that. Hell, even the thought of it scared her.
A corny line from the movie drew her full attention. She watched, through slightly drunk eyes, as Tom told Renee, ‘You complete me.’
Guffawing loudly at the saccharine sentiment, she laughed into her wine glass, before slamming it down onto the table and sobbing into her sleeve.
* * * *
Where the hell was he?
The Fan checked her laptop for the millionth time—knowing without checking that she was in the right city on the correct date. The website confirmed what she already knew. There were to be two days of promotion followed by a concert on Monday.
Ruben’s manager and road crew had all turned up as expected, but he was conspicuous by his absence. Even Albert had come—a fact that didn’t make her feel particularly happy. The only time he went anywhere without his bodyguard was when he was visiting family or friends…or girlfriends.
The brunette. It had to be her. She knew nothing about her, except that she hated her. Deeply.
For once, she was grateful that the other fans were in town, too. At least she wouldn’t go insane waiting for him to show up.
Martha came out of the bathroom, asking if she was ready. They were meeting up with the rest of the girls at the band’s hotel. A night spent watching their pathetic attention seeking wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but it was preferable to wondering what Ruben was up to.
A couple of hours later, she threw back another drink, unable to take much more of the inane chatter without a serious amount of alcohol. She had spent the time, since they’d followed the band to a the nightclub, watching women—some of them old enough to be her mother—lose their morals and their minds as they took turns at seducing the guys and it was beginning to take its toll. One of the slightly younger fans finally struck lucky —if you could call it that—and ended up giving the sound guy a blowjob in the bathroom. The party broke up pretty soon after.